Other pages

Search

Brand guidelines

The following guidelines will help you express our brand and convey the Software Sustainability Institute, its key strengths and reputation, to the best advantage. The following were designed to help you present a consistent, coherent and clear image that will support and enhance the status of the Institute.

Key message

The Software Sustainability Institute is a national facility for building better software. We help researchers to introduce software into their research or improve the software they already use. The Institute’s vision is to create a world where software is treated as a first-class citizen and is sustainable, enabling better research. Our strapline reads “Better Software, Better Research.”

Values

The Institute has a position of national responsibility, so we conduct our work professionally. However, we present a friendly, informal persona, which appeals and makes us approachable to our target audiences, at the same time that it distances us from competitors who have adhered to conventional academic practices.

We believe that community-based solutions are effective and cost-efficient, so we promote collaboration within the research community.

We are highly innovative and are keen to use new approaches in all aspects of our work.

We believe that content is king. Badly written content litters the internet, and we do not want to contribute towards it. All content that is published under the Institute’s brand will be reviewed and edited to conform to a quality standard.

Visual identity

Our livery is red (C15 M100 Y100 K0 for print materials, or R210 G35 B42 for online purposes), which is quickly identifiable and not used by any of our competitors. This, together with black and white colours, should be used in all of our publicity materials, including, but not limited to, the website, printed and online designs.

Logo

There are two main versions of the Software Sustainability Institute logo. The main version contains the Institute’s exploded doughnut design and the full name of the Institute:

The second design contains only the exploded doughnut and the web address, as such it is smaller than the main logo and can be used when space is premium:

The former should be used in preference to the latter.

The Software Sustainability Institute logo must only be used as a single graphical unit. It must not be adapted, re-coloured, or modified in any way other than uniformly re-scaling the logo to fit the intended usage.

Two official logo “colours” are available to use: a full-colour version for use on white and light-coloured backgrounds, and a white version for use on dark backgrounds.

We also have a black version for use on white backgrounds and only when black and white printing is allowed. The black version should not be chosen over the full-colour version.

Slide template

Three-slide introduction to the Institute and its teams and activities. Licensed under CC-BY. This allows you to use the materials in any way as long as you give us credit, but not in a way that suggests that we endorse you, your work, or your use of the materials. Please contact us if you wish to get permission for endorsement or other uses. Institute Fellows are implicitly endorsed by us through their Fellowship.

When using the template, please credit the "Software Sustainability Institute" and provide a link to our website. You may also use our logo (though you are not obliged to).

We'd like to keep track of who's doing so to inform our stakeholders. If you've used or linked to the material, please give us some details by making a Pull Request to the file WHERE_USED.md

Editorial style guide

Citing the Institute’s work

If you have worked with us, we’d appreciate it if you would acknowledge the support and assistance you’ve received. This helps our funders to see the work we have done with all our partners and collaborators. Read our guidance on how to cite us.

Funding

We are funded by the seven councils that form UKRI. In official documents and outreach materials, the following acknowledgement should be included:

The Software Sustainability Institute is supported by the UK’s seven Research Councils through Grant EP/H043160/1, Grant EP/N006410/1 and Grant EP/S021779/1.

Any questions about our brand guidelines should be directed to the Communications team at info@software.ac.uk